1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus such as a digital camera or a video camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, image pickup apparatuses as typified by digital cameras have been required to be equipped with a large image pickup device due to the demand for higher image quality. Upsizing an image pickup device gains various benefits such as reduced noise resulting in improved tone, enlarged dynamic range, and increased range of depth of field, but on the other hand, an image pickup apparatus has to be upsized.
In particular, upsizing of an image pickup substrate which is a circuit substrate on which an image pickup device is mounted is inevitable. The position of an image pickup substrate as well as the position of an image pickup device is adjusted during optical adjustment carried out when the image pickup apparatus is assembled, and for this reason, the image pickup substrate is preferably configured to be as small as possible. Accordingly, an image pickup substrate is generally configured separately from a main substrate which is a circuit substrate on which electronic components are mounted.
Further, there is known a technique that an image pickup substrate itself is comprised of a flexible substrate which is flexible so that the image pickup substrate and a main substrate can be electrically connected together. The image pickup substrate and the main substrate are electrically connected together by a connector mounted on one or both of the image pickup substrate and the main substrate. In this case, the image pickup substrate is a multilayer flexible substrate, and further, as described above, because the image pickup substrate becomes larger with upsizing of the image pickup device, the image pickup substrate should be very expensive.
There is known another technique that electrically connects an image pickup substrate and a main substrate together by a flexible substrate or a wire harness for connection (hereafter referred to as the connecting member). Although the image pickup substrate has a multilayer construction, it is not expensive because the image pickup substrate itself does not have to be comprised of a flexible substrate, and the size of the image pickup substrate can be minimized. Moreover, even when the connecting member is formed of a flexible substrate, it does not have to be a multilayer one and therefore be inexpensive.
The configuration using the connecting member requires electrical connection using connectors or the like in two places such as the image pickup substrate and the connecting member, and the connecting member and the main substrate. Moreover, for connecting areas using connectors, it is important to take a preventive measure for preventing disengagement of the connectors due to a shock caused by a drop of the image pickup apparatus. As this preventive measure, there has been known a method that, for example, when connectors are of a vertical fitting type, provides an outer cover or the like with a restraining member and elastically urges a connector connecting portion so as to inhibit the distance between the connectors from becoming longer than an effective fitting length of the connector connecting portion (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-339206).
Among two connecting areas including a connecting area between the image pickup substrate and the connecting member, and a connecting area between the connecting member and the main substrate as described above, the method as described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-339206 can be effectively applied to the latter. However, it is difficult to apply the same configuration to a connecting area where the image pickup substrate and the connecting member are connected together.
This is because the position of an image pickup substrate is adjusted during optical adjustment as described above, and hence when an outer cover or the like is provided with a restraining member, the distance between the image pickup substrate and the outer cover is not constant, and also, the distance between the restraining member and a connector connecting portion mounted on the image pickup substrate is not constant. For this reason, not only the effect of reliably preventing disconnection of the connector connecting portion cannot be expected, but also the image pickup substrate that has already been optically adjusted may be out of position due to an unexpected load imposed thereon, and as a result, optical adjustment may be difficult.